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63. Black Salt Springs
The crew of the Drunken Dragon have sailed beyond the northern reach of the Rumidian Empire, through the sea of moving ice known as the Frostflows, and then travelled further yet. With a mountain-sized World Tree on their horizon to guide them, they managed to reach the snowy landmass known as Hyrrvelheim and then the home of their companion Alric on it, a hold in a hot-spring rich canyon called the Black Salt Springs. The date was Fallingleaf 42. * After watching Alric's return and his start at paying the debts of his fallen shield mates as he plays the role of their surrogate, Alric went into the hold to start repairing someone's home in preparation for the harsh winter while the party were shown to the old house of one of Alric's fallen companions. To their surprise, they were given it as thanks for bringing Alric, his message, and his obligations home. ** The house was located a third of the way up the canyon wall, with the back half of the house formed in the natural rock of the wall and the front half made of wood and thatch. ** It sported a stone fireplace; three large-ish rooms; and a private, adjacent hot spring on the small terrace of the canyon wall, the water's a chalky, charcoal grey, the hold's namesake black salt crusting the edges of the pool. It lacked furnishings of any other kind. * After they've settled a bit, the party decide to go explore the town while they set their crew to transporting the food supplies they bought in Dougall's Waite into the hold. ** The Black Salt Springs didn't have a lot of activity going on beyond people obviously preparing their homesteads for winter - lots of big-horn sheep being sheered and shoring up of ladders, walkways, roofs, and walls. ** The party travelled down to the ground floor and headed to a large, long building that seemed to be a point of interest. It appeared to be a drinking hall but was empty at the time. ** As they turned to leave the hall they were met at the doorway by an old male tiefling, grey skinned and grey-white haired, with a forked tail and three larger fingers on each hand. ** The tiefling introduced himself as Sanya, saying he too was once an outsider to the Black Salt Springs, and that he'd be happy to show them around a bit and offer some of the local brand of hospitality. ** The group accept and Sanya takes them around the hold, pointing out anything of note as they went. He shows the group the homesteads on both sides of the canyon, with the chief - the highest ranking male warrior - having a home at the top of one side, and the völva - a group of female wise women - sharing a home at the top of the other side. The chief and the völva apparently rule in tandem, with some matters falling under the purview of one more than the other. Sanya also shows them the communal hot spring pools deeper within the canyon walls - different pools are said to have different properties - as well as the wrestling and training grounds, which were mostly empty at the time save for a few people working on maintaining the equipment. Some of the party noted that while there were axes, hammers, and shields aplenty, there were no swords to be seen. Finally, at a different exit of the canyon to the one they arrived in, Sanya pointed off at a pine forest just visible on the snowy horizon, telling them it was used mostly for wood and hunting. ** As Sanya showed them around, they asked about him and learned that he has lived happily in the Black Salt Springs for nearly three decades, being welcomed in after he inadvertently saved the life of a völva. He worked as a smuggler for a long time, but mostly just spent his life running from place to place, since few in his experience were quick to trust tieflings outside of criminal settings - at least until he found his way into the graces of these icefolk. ** Before he leaves them, Sanya gives them a small bottle of hard liquor - known below the sea of moving ice as Frostflow Silver, a drink Pyt once enjoyed the first time the party met Lady Rouge on Tortuga. Sanya tells them that there'd be celebrations for Alric's return once his obligations were complete, though it would be a bit of a wait since he was in the unusual position of carrying out the obligations of a whole longship crew. Sanya hoped the bottle would tie them over until then. ** They go and find Alric, who's busy repairing a roof. He tells them that with the nature of some of his obligations, he'll be busy until the first night of the next full moon at least - three weeks' time. ** That seems quite a long time to wait to most of the group, since they were on the clock. Aerendyl asks Alric if there was any way they could help him meet the obligations. At first Alric simply says that the debt is his to shoulder, but he stops to reconsider and says that he'll ask Black Agni if he would prefer any of the party as surrogate instead of Alric himself. * With some time to kill and wanting to get a feel for the local area, the group decide to go explore the pine forest in the distance. ** It's an hour's trek from the Black Salt Springs to the edge of the forest, and then they spent the next three hours pushing into the woods and looking for anything worth hunting. ** They saw a fair bit of the local fauna: a marten hunting squirrels, grey owls in the trees, and a musk deer being stalked by a pack of wolves. In the case of the latter, Aerendyl opted to leave the prey to the wolves rather than claim the kill for himself. ** After a quick scout in grey owl form, Aerendyl tells the group he's seen a near-perfectly circular clearing a ways off. Going there, the group find the foliage has been cleared to form the round opening, and tree trunks have been laid about on their sides to almost form a circle in the centre of the clearing. A trio of flat-topped cylindrical stones interrupted the circle of trunks - three different heights to the stones: one at shin height to a human, one above the knee, and one at waist height. A fluffy ginger skogkatt was lounging on top of the tallest stone. ** They find that the stone pillars appear to have writing in curvy runes on their tops, though none can read the language. With a Comprehend Languages spell, Wilfred is able to discern the following: *** Shortest pillar: 'I have seen things through to the end.' *** Middle pillar: 'From Dodkong's (Dead King) sealing to end of days.' *** For fear that the cat might have been a familiar or a forest spirit of some kind, they didn't want to antagonise it too much. Clwyd tried scaring it off by Eldritch Blasting the ground next to the pillar, earning little more than an angry hiss from the thing. They tried getting it to move or shoo, but it wouldn't budge, so Wilfred made do with discerning the meaning of the runes the cat wasn't covering. *** Tallest pillar: 'Let this . . . testament . . .' ** With the day growing late, they decide to return to the Black Salt Springs rather than push their luck. * They get a fire going in their new house's fireplace, gather their crew in the stone room of their new house, crack open the bottle Sanya had given them, and talk for a bit. ** Wilfred takes a moment to present Poop the brownie with the little bronze key he'd bought for him in the Fifth Hell's workshops, telling him it could well be a key to anything, even to Mephistopheles's home. Poop's eyes go wide and he asks if Wilfred really means to give it to him. The gnome smiles and hands it over happily. Poop is awestruck and he handles the little key with as much reverent care as he can, though the thing is the size of a greatsword relative to his tiny body. He mutters 'oh wow!' a few times while staring at the key, and then throws it down on the floor and dives on it, pulling out a tiny hammer and chisel from his ever-present satchel and working furiously at the body of the key. Wilfred says he's glad Poop likes it but the brownie barely hears him, telling him absentmindedly that he's busy now. Wilfred leaves him be. ** From where he's sat across the room, Aerendyl thinks there might be more to what just happened than Wilfred even knows, though he keeps most of the details to himself, only sharing with Garret that it's often a significant thing when someone gifts a fey with something not in the hope of getting anything in return, but only hoping to make the fey happy. Garret chuckles and says there's rarely a dull day hanging out with this lot. ** Sanya arrives later in the evening, well after sunset, having brought a roasted sheep's leg for the group to eat. It's heavily spiced with ice peppers, but tastes pretty good. ** They ask him about the clearing in the forest. Sanya says its called the Moon Meadow, and that its a place where the völva work their magics. * The next day, Fallingleaf 43: ** They find Alric again in the morning. He has a chuckle that the group slept on the ground without blankets rather than asking anyone in the hold for sheepskins, and tells them Agni has decided he will have Aerendyl as surrogate following the elf's offer. He is expecting Aerendyl at sunset. When the elf asks what to expect, Alric is taken aback for a moment, then hesitantly asks if he's aware of what he agreed to do. He urges him not to shame Agni's honour or himself, and that if he isn't capable of being surrogate, to say so now so the shame can be abetted a little bit by at least telling Agni it isn't possible after all. At the very least, Alric says, Aerendyl should be expecting some involvement of sheepskins. Aerendyl says it will be fine and that there's no need to shame anyone by backing out on promises at this stage. ** They ask Alric about how they should conduct themselves with the völva, intending to go and ask them about the five witches of the ice in the Coven of Covens. Alric appears to be reverent and fearful of the völva in equal measure. He gives a long, near-nonsensical, and at time contradictory, list of advice on how they should conduct themselves. At the end, he tells them there is more than one way to be strong in this world - his way, the same as the party's way in many respects, is not the same as the völva. But the kind of strength the völva have is something Alric strives for. * They go to the house of the völva, a large building near the top of one side of the canyon. ** Before they go in, Wilfred casts Tongues on Pyt and Aerendyl augments his instincts by casting Enhance Ability: Wisdom on himself. ** They knock. After a long wait, the large door opens, revealing the woman who had Alric shave her head on his return to the hold. Signe is her name, and she is the newest and youngest of the Black Salt Spring's völva. ** She says they have been expected and says they will wait. Then she abruptly shuts the door again. ** When Signe eventually returns, she tells them they will follow and leads them through the intricately decorated rooms of the völva's home. They pass into the narrow corridor of a natural cavern and the air is suddenly warm. ** The corridor leads to a hot spring pool deep within the canyon wall, a large off-centre slit in the ceiling proving the only light. Two women, one in her 50s and the other in her 80s, are in the pool up to their necks, their heads shaved bald just as Signe's had been. ** Signe starts undressing, telling the group they will do the same and enter the pool. ** When all is done, Aerendyl, Clwyd, Pyt, and Wilfred are naked in the near-scalding, chalky waters (the small duo standing rather than sitting in the water) looking at the equally naked trio of women. ** The women appear to defer to their elders, with Signe playing the role of an apprentice despite being in her 30s at least. The middle-aged woman, Gunhild, studied the party with hawk-like eyes, while her elder, Auda, did most of the talking. ** To account for why they were expected, Auda says there are few sunlanders who travel to the lands of ice and snow without some goal or desire. Fewer who would take residence in the Black Salt Springs. She says they are meeting in a bath because there are fewer secrets and fewer barriers between people in such a setting. ** The group agreed that Pyt would do the talking, and the half-elf just comes out with the truth of it: they are on a quest to hunt the five witches of the ice. He asks if the völva know anything about them - and he hopes to himself that they aren't allies of some kind. ** The völva are reticent to send people off to their deaths on a fool's errand, and should they point the way, they might as well have killed the party themselves. Pyt argues that they'd be going on their hunt anyway, and if they aren't shown the way then any ill that befalls them in finding it will equally be the fault of the völva at this point. ** Auda asks Signe to rule on the decision as a leader must, and to bear the weight of the choice she makes in doing so. Signe hesitates, but eventually says that the Black Salt Springs owes this group a debt, that the völva owe them a debt for bringing one who allowed their ranks to be filled back to three again. The völva should pay back that debt as the group so wishes, and so they should tell them what they can. ** Auda huffs to herself, perhaps in amusement. Then she shares with the group the little she knows: *** There is a forest lush with life despite the barren ice around it. Alric has been to this place once, as have some other foolish men who wish to see a glimpse of the afterlife. Though Auda does not know for certain, the patterns of the world suggests that a witch may call such a place their home. *** The second location is more certain. An island populated by nymphs, amidst an unfrozen lake deep within the frozen tundra. When Auda apprenticed, her senior völva had studied on the island for a time, under the witch that lives there. * The group return to their home and wile away the hours, contemplating what they should do next. ** With the setting sun, Aerendyl goes to Black Agni's house while the group jeer him about sheepskins, though Aerendyl is convinced what he'll have to do surely doesn't involve coitus. ** When he eventually does return, the group are very curious to hear what happened but the elf doesn't share the details. ** In the early hours of the next day, after Aerendyl was done with his trance but before the others had awoke, Clwyd asked him if maybe he wanted to talk about it between just the two of them. Aerendyl says it wasn't anything bad, but that it was immensely personal and he feels like it isn't his to share. * The group slip into a bit of a routine with the simple life in the Black Salt Springs as it preps for winter. Sanya spends time with them regularly, showing them around, bringing them food in the evenings, and filling their house with furry sheepskins when they eventually ask for some bedding, they bathe in the hot springs regularly, and debate a bit more about what might be the best course of action for them to take: ** On the one hand, they have some good leads on where to look for the witches; but on the other, they still have so much less information on them than they did in the case of the coven around the Pirate Republic. ** They also might get lost amidst the featureless tundra if they don't wait for Alric to finish with his obligations, but they don't know if they can afford the time - though Aerendyl suggests that he feels he is now capable of casting Windwalk to expedite their travel immensely, perhaps making the time crunch less of a worry. * Three days later, on Crawlfrost 1, having decided that they want more information, the group decides to travel to another of the holds on the island of Hyrrvelheim, hoping to ask either the chief or the völva some more questions. When they ask Alric who the highest ranking chief in the area is, there's an essence of fate to it all. He tells them they'll find the Jarl of Hyrrvelheim in the Blue Lake Hold, the biggest of the island's holds. The Jarl earned their title by being the strongest of the island's chiefs, but she's someone they've already heard of: Ursula, Mother of Bears, known by some as Old White Eyes. ** Aerendyl casts Windwalk on all the crew, including Poop in Wilfred's pocket, and they zip over the land towards the Blue Lake Hold. The 'blue lake' is frozen white at this time of year, but serves as an easy landmark to navigate towards, and the hold is in some foothills nearby. It's far larger and far more fortified than the Black Salt Springs. ** They come out of mist form at the edge of the foothills and walk through them towards the hold, not wanting to attract undue hostility by just appearing in the middle of the place. As they walk, sentries in small hill forts sound alarm horns, such that a welcome party of icefolk, armed and armoured, are waiting for them at the entrance to the Blue Lake Hold. ** A tense conversation later and Ursula is summoned. Her eyes snap to Wilfred's necklace and she immediately grows agitated and almost flustered - not what they expected from someone of her reputation. She's asking him where he got it, saying it shouldn't be here - that he shouldn't be here. ** Wilfred tells her he got it from his parents, who are dead now. She replies that that makes no sense. ** Ursula rushes the party into the hold, into her large home. Wilfred (and the rest of the party) wants some answers, but Ursula says she cannot provide them. All she can do is offer hospitality while her summons is answered - but when it is, then, she says, Wilfred's answers will come. ** Three agonising days pass. While the party and their crew are kept in relative luxury within Ursula's large home, they aren't given leave to explore the Blue Lake Hold itself and she refuses to answer their questions. The party isn't sure if they can trust her, but nobody's intuition is telling them that she's lying. ** In the pre-dawn morning of Crawlfrost 4, Ursula ushers the party and their crew out the Blue Lake Hold, and up through the foothills until they're trekking through deep snow and glacier rock, up towards the lands of bitter ice that are known as the roof of the world. She has a small retinue of people with her, pulling sacks and crates on sleds and more still strapped to their backs. ** She stops the trek well after midday. The land all around was largely featureless grey and white, save for some mountains poking up over the horizon in various directions. But they stood next to a large totem post, as tall as a tree. And there they waited. ** Hours passed and still they waited. ** The sun was threatening to disappear when a carpet of mist and fog rolled in. It grew thicker and thicker as the minutes passed, until an outstretched hand was as much as could be seen in it. ** Clwyd was gripping tight to her blasting rod, ready for a fight. Wilfred was ready for some answers. ** Then, amidst the fog, an inexplicable sight: a galleon ship, its hull a brilliant, icy blue, its sails and rigging the purest snowy white, sailing through the ice and fog as easy as a ship sails through the sea. The ship stopped near the totem post, its crew looked down at the group, and all of them were the people the Siblings of Agnor had shown to Wilfred in their water, people who had lived their lives long ago and been called Old White Eyes. Now they sailed this ship, with stylised blue sun on its sails and flag: the ship of the Dawnfrost, pirate lord of the ice.